Practical Martial Arts Association

On September 20, 1945, President Truman issued an executive order terminating the OSS, effective 1 October.    In the few days remaining to the agency, General Donovan ordered Lt. Edwin J. Putzell to assist him in microfilming select documents from Donovan's safe files for his own action and personal use. Donovan and Putzell worked, under pressure of time, with a Kodak Recordak Camera to produce 131 rolls of 35mm microfilm from the records of the Donovan files. You can find the summary of the contents of those microfilms here - not only is it a good place to look for other reference material, the summary itself makes for fascinating reading and shows just how many pies the OSS was trying to stick its fingers in by 1945.

The Finnish Military film 'Lähitaistelu', literally 'close combat' or 'melee combat' is said to date from 1957 and provides an interesting look at what I like to call the re-engineering of Jujutsu (1).  In some ways, the system is extremely sophisticated, with a high degree of systematisation and some complex training exercises. For the most part, I don't want to add detailed commentary as what appears in the film is self-explanatory and I am unable to understand the Finnish soundtrack - for all I know it may show something and be saying "never do this". The first part of the film is somewhat of an introduction, but I have included it as it shows physical training (reminiscent of the old Camp X footage) and some shooting.  The film is broken up into sections, and I will, therefore, make one post per section in the manner of the film. Lähitaistelu (close combat) Highlights from coming sections: Sub-machine gun training with moving and pop-up targets...

Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare follows the main players and big events connected with the SOE and adjoining agencies throughout the second world war.  This book is an absolute page-turner!  Daring raids, weird weapons, ridiculous politics and stone cold killers make up the riveting tale of guerillas and commandos during the second world war. I picked this book up due to my interest in W E Fairbairn.  There are some interesting tidbits on Fairbairn and Sykes, however, they are not the focus here - the book does however give real context to the need for their brand of training. It is probably fair to say the central character in the book is  Sir Colin McVean Gubbins , who was the 'prime mover' of the SOE during the war.  At the outset of the war, Gubbins wrote two manuals on guerilla warfare, and like many believed the invasion of Britain was coming and they would be reduced to fighting this style of war.  One of his first jobs was setti...